The Fat Diaries: Do We Really Need New Ways to Eat Ketchup?

Heinz recently announced that they’ve changed their age-old design for ketchup packets. Traditionally if one wanted ketchup at a fast food chain your ketchup would come in a sealed foil pouch. It was then up to you to open the darn thing using fingers, teeth, acetylene torches, and/or chainsaws. You then had to figure out a way of transferring the ketchup onto your burger’s wrapper or container, or occasionally (if you were my guy friends in high school) putting a wad of french-fries in your mouth and adding the ketchup directly.

One was guaranteed to get ketchup on one’s shirt or pants. What this meant was that you thought twice about eating it in your car.

I’ve often argued that the fact that more mealtimes in America are being eaten en route to somewhere else is a travesty. For many kids, dinner consists of drive-through faire in-between soccer practice and piano lessons. We’ve over-scheduled our kids to the point where “family together time” is spent in the car, trying to talk to them with our mouths full, while balancing a cheeseburger and changing lanes.

According to Heinz’s market research, many people while eating their meals on wheels would forgo fries due to the problem of ketchup packets. If one was a “dipper,” it was nigh impossible to do so in the car. This was probably the best thing to happen to Fat America — alas no more.

Heinz’s new ketchup “Dip and Squeeze” package was invented to solve this problem. It has a shallow plastic bottom (similar to McDonald’s BBQ sauce) that fits in a cup-holder. It was tested in model car simulations and it moderately made dipping fries not only possible but relatively cleaner. Skeptical as I am about the new ketchup packet (it’s built like a coffee creamer! You ever open one of those and not get any on you?) it’s going to make dipping fries a lot easier for the carpool crowd. Hooray we can get fat in our cars again.

I brought this up to my husband who mentioned that once a week he’s forced to eat en route because of his commitments to our church. “I have to eat in my car! There’s no other way!” he explained and he did have a point. Not everyone has the freedom or the time to eat a balanced meal when the clock is ticking and your stomach feels like it’s going to collapse inward. I admit that when I have to travel to conventions, if we’re pressed for time (especially at breakfast) the little handy window is our only hope.

Fast food is the classic double-edged sword for our civilization and only those who know the true nature of the blade will survive. It’s up to us the consumer, however, to think twice about the ramifications of constant drive-thru meals and to remember that while fries with ketchup are now possible, is it still a smart choice?

I’m a little worried about what new innovations science will come up with to help us eat while in a car. Cars now have wipe-clean seat covers, more cup-holders, side trays and I’ve even seen lap trays sold online. I also nearly got creamed on the road by a guy in a jeep who cut me off while eating a burger and changing lanes without signaling. Thanks to Heinz, now he can dip too.